Reverend Butch Pogue drilled holes through the back legs and attached a contraption he’d built then secured a metal bar above the hooves with bolts, and Junior pulled the tractor in low gear and raised the dead horse up into the big Oak where the Reverend skinned him out, as Junior pulled the hide off in patches and sheets, and steam rose off the meat in waves of stench the Reverend found intoxicating.

They could buy cows cheaper than horses but the Reverend liked the meat.

Oh, yeah–it’s a true story. My life is really like this. It happened last night:

One Fine Evening at the Liquor Store

As Susan peered deeply into me, making me open up and talk about things that I would never discuss with a stranger, I was not aware at the time that her broken English was only slightly better than that of her husband’s unintelligible mangling of the language with his thick Vietnamese accent.
Earlier, I had been witness to an odd ritual as she cleansed the store of bad spirits and blessed it for luck with prayer, incense, and candles that were part of some Buddhist ceremony that seemed completely alien to me.
After everything else that happened in this strange night at the small liquor store—the broken cooler, the credit card machine malfunction, the culture clash-fueled anger from customers that I diffused—it was the appropriate nightcap, but I didn’t realize it until I left for the night and walked to my car, muttering, “Fucking mystics.”

[…] This is another in the series of flash fiction from Chuck Wendig’s site “Terrible Minds.” The theme this week was to write a story in just three sentences. I posted it directly on his site as per the challenge rules, but I also have to put it here. There is more to this story, which I will be writing about soon. To see more three-sentence stories, catch a wave and surf over here: Chuck Wendig’s Flash Fiction Challenge: Another Three Sentences […]

Monkey’s brains are filled with cotton wool, the stuff that comes from yarn stores, though he once told Teddy that it came from the bra of a flat-chested stripper from Vegas, and that’s why he thinks the thoughts he does, and he’s made from socks worn by a lumberjack, too, so he could kick anybody’s ass, even the boy who sneaks out the window late, late, late at night.
He knows he’s a he-Monkey because when he wishes he could masturbate, he wants to yank, not to finger, not like the girl who isn’t little anymore, lonely quick movements under her covers, who doesn’t realize his button eyes see in the dark, sewn wide open, watching her, tail stiff and quivering.
His red smile stretches wide, always, for he will be there long after the boy is gone, smothered up against her soft breasts as she cries; he’s not a jealous Monkey –after all, Teddy doesn’t have a penis either– and no one looks as good in a sock cap as he does.

Ivy knew taking this case was a mistake but they needed the money which is never a good basis for decision making. Bishop promised double fees, but now that she was the prey instead of the hunter, she was seriously rethinking the whole monetary gain issue. The smell of rotting flesh was all around and she could hear feet slapping the wet pavement as she felt the stirring of the touch as Sam reached out to her.

His undead neighbors shuffled ceaselessly below his third story apartment window and his compulsion to count and touch them had become almost unbearable; at first he’d thought the desire to count was a quirk – annoying, but harmless – but now he knew better.

As he counted his remaining shotgun shells and adjusted each with meticulous care to ensure that they lined up across his cheap Formica kitchen table in ranks and files with perfect alignment and proximity, he wondered if 27 would be enough.

He loaded the shotgun, inverted the barrel, and stared into its black depths; as it turned out, one round would be sufficient.

One minute she’s fine and the next it’s as if someone poured a bucketful of crappy feelings over her head: loneliness, worthlessness, dreariness. “I am not a bad person,” she mumbles to herself as the tears roll down her cheeks. Maybe someday she’ll believe it.

I didn’t think zombies were real until I became one. Contrary to popular belief, zombies do know what’s going on around them, require blood instead of brains and can break the control of their necromancer and be free again. I wish I’d known that killing my necromancer would also kill me.

[…] Chuck Wendig (who’s blog, Terrible Minds, happens to be outstanding) issued a three sentence flash fiction challenge, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to toy with the concept of introducing a psychological […]

He stares down the rusted barrel of a .44 caliber single action six shot percussion revolver over the salloon’s rickety poker table. The irony hits him right before the round iron bullet does. As his bloodied head hits the table an ace of spades slides from his duster’s left sleeve, the death card.

All stories start somewhere – this one begins with a pizza. It middles with furtive glances, laughter on walks without destinations, timid flirting, and hands incidentally grazing over a shared bowl of frozen yogurt. It ends with an awkward hug at a doorstep, the long lonely walk home, a missed opportunity, and filled with regret.

I arrived seemingly before I left. One moment the cops were around the corner and the next I sat down in the sand on the empty beach. With my stolen NeutrinoPort, it was easy to slip in and out of dimensions; staying in one place was what I found to be impossible.

He was about to tell the old lady to go fuck herself when the roof caved in on his head and the floor gave way and the next thing he knew he was sliding through a series of tunnels and shot out like a torpedo into a dark pool of water. When he came up for air, he coughed heavily while treading water and swam in an expanding spiral until he hit the edge of the pool, then clung to it as he called out for help. “You know what you can do, Peter,” she cooed in his ear, “you can go fuck yourself,” and then he felt a sharp heel digging into his forehead, pushing him under and with a silent scream he swallowed the darkness.

I dug my hands inch by inch into the waterstarved dirt around me and felt the earth itself cry for water, but eonsof tears had evaporated before they even reached the parched ground.
I kept digging, day after day, monthby month, until I was a husk of flesh as dry as the earth above me andI reached the water far below the surface.
I dropped my cracked and dry body intothe water and felt the water shudder in surprise and realize it’s mistakein thinking earth and water could ever be separated, and as the water rushedup the hole I’d made I knew I’d saved millions.

She could never get the colours right, no matter how hard she tried. The beauty she used to paint, remains trapped in her head. Blinded, she fears she might not be able to see the open window God has replaced for her locked doors.

The dark figure struck the match and watched as it blazed brightly in the blackness of the night. It fell casually to the floor where it rested, nearly extinguished itself, and suddenly burned brighter. The fire ate through the paper and the gasoline, it ate through the wallpaper and the curtains, it ate through the carpet and the beds and, finally, it ate through the four bodies sprawled on them.

She changes with the seasons. In autumn’s shadow she is melancholy and sorrow, and withdraws into the snow wilds for winter’s watch. In the springtime her hair turns ripe and she walks back into the world – ice skin dripping – glowing like a sun.

She used to puke in the toilet, usually right after she caught me glancing at her belly or if I accidentally squeezed her side in just the wrong way. Eventually the bile stench faded, and she started eating regular meals and said she felt much better about herself.

Tonight, she sobbed against the open bathroom door as the shower streamed into the clogged tub, filled to its edge with black water and half-digested lettuce: “I just want it to go away.”

When I met her, she was perfect for me: like fire between the sheets, the solid ground beneath my feet when I grasped for the stars, ice on my wounds when I inevitably fell; my muse, breathing in inspiration. She asked me to marry her just a second ago. I’m going to turn her down, because she’s perfect, and doesn’t need me in any way.

She holds him tight, plants a kiss on his whiskery cheek, but he says nothing, so she pulls his arm, tugging at it until it dislodges from its socket. She peers at the severed purple appendage and flings it aside. Time for Mummy to buy her new toys.

“There’s got to be some way to get out of this town without joining the Army,” Julia said.
I tucked the letter into my back pocket as I looked at her soft brown hair framing her face.
“Got to be,” I said.

Bill awoke with a scream. After stumbling to the bathroom and washing his face, the clown in the wardrobe had almost slipped from his mind completely.
Chuckles was patient though – he didn’t mind waiting.

She ran past the limits of her endurance, to the point where pain became pleasure. The monster’s jaws snapped shut behind her as she plunged into a gaping maw, and was swallowed by a tree. A long time later she emerged, changed.

When the evolutionary accelerator was tested on the cats the predictable disaster resulted. Only their focus on the dogs and foolish humans who dared to name savage creatures Muffin or Boots gave us time to experiment on another species. Now the forbidden sciences have rid us of the cats, but what will save us from the squirrels?